Wake Up
by Lady of the Phoenix
Summary: Gamzee wakes up after being knocked out, and finds the world around him is not what he remembered it being. Sometimes the worst nightmares are the ones you can't wake up from.


Author's Notes: For tumblr users altelia-bellerina and caledscratch. The former asked the later for a drawing of Karkat being possessive over Gamzee. The latter provided a rather unnerving set of drawings that sent shivers down my spine. Then, when it was all said and done, the latter added a comment. Five words that have led to THIS fiasco. 'Get Mercale on this shit.' Well, here I am. I am all up and over this shit. You get what you ask for people. Well, no, that isn't fully true. Altelia-bellerina didn't ask for exactly what came of this. Cale did. Cale knew what Cale was getting into. Knew what I do with this stuff when the picture is NOT deliberately leading into the dark and grim. Maybe you shouldn't have asked the final question, Cale. This is your doing.

Cale's pictures are interpreted as bits and pieces of the scene I create here. They occur in order, but not always immediately after each other.

To see the art, please send me a PM and I'll send you a link.

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Wake Up

The first real thought he manages in his pan is just how badly it hurts. Like some motherfucker up and dropped the whole motherfucking meteor on his head. Whatever, or whoever had inflicted this upon him was in for all different kinds of worlds and lands of hurt. What motherfuckers snuck up behind a brother and hit them between the horns? Just wasn't all civilized. Even he knew that. Even he had made sure to face Equius himself while he'd put the squeeze on the disobediant fuck, when he'd bludgeoned the moirail. Even a mirthful motherfucking messiah understood the value of facing the troll you were condemning. Had to let them see your face, see the horror that culled them.

"Hey."

The voice, soft, low, and Karkat's is enough to get Gamzee to start to open his eyes despite the throbbing around his horns, in the back of his pan. Whoever the sick fuck was that had tried to pull this shit on Gamzee obviously wasn't up and around now. Karkat wouldn't up and let any motherfucker lay a claw on him. Beautiful fucking thing, how his palemate pitied him. Whichever of the scum who had dared to strike him would be gone nursing the injuries his palebro had given them for their presumption that they could lay a single fucking finger on Gamzee Makara.

"Don't move too fast," Karkat adds, his voice still soft, still low in a kind of way that Gamzee'd never really heard before. Nice for the brother to take such concern for him, Gamzee thought as his eyes opened fully and he got a good look at his moirail.

As he saw his moirail looming over him, no kind of smile or any other twisting of the lips on his miraculous face. An expression that was blank, blank in a way that Karkat had never had before. Because it wasn't like this was the kind of motherfucker to be anything other than caught up in the violent throes of some emotion or other.

It's the blankness, new and almost terrifying, that really gets Gamzee to notice the small things. Like how he's in a chair. Like how he can't move his wrists. Like the press of wood and rope against his legs keeping him in place. Like the cords so tight around his chest that not only can he not move, but it's hard to breathe. The smallest motions make the ropes cut into his skin, but that doesn't stop Gamzee from struggling against the bonds at his wrists. It's only when he feels the cold roll of a liquid over his hands, scents the tang of blood in the air that he relents. Whatever happened, whoever had tied him up, they'd been good. Too good. Almost enough to make him think of Equius, but that brother was dead. Dead and floating in some tube he'd found. Kanaya then? Or Terezi? The teal bitch was good with knots and ropes. Probably her then. And the reason his palebro was so silent was because he was disappointed in either Gamzee for getting caught, or in Terezi for doing the catching.

Except this whole time, Karkat hasn't made a move. Through all of his struggles, Karkat has just stood there, impassive in a way that is creepy. Creepier than that stab-happy carapace. Creepier than the vastness of space, or the green sun, or the white text that always talks to him. Almost like someone has turned some serious business chucklevoodoos on him, which is impossible. He's the only one here that can do that sort of shit.

"What...? Bro... what the fu-" Gamzee starts to ask, and then Karkat's speaking, his voice still soft. But not soft, Gamzee realizes as he speaks. Dead. Broken. Ruined. There is none of the fire left. Just defeat.

"You're the only one left, you know. I wonder if you fucking planned it that way..."

Only one left? What was that even up and supposed to mean?

"Karkat, what are you even up and talking about? I don't have any plans spinning themselves out at this point." A lie, but a harmless one, right? "Could you do a palebro a favor and get these ropes off of me?"

"No."

"What?"

"You heard me. I cracked your fucking head, not your ears. So just get comfortable. We're going to have a little talk."

Cracked his head? Shit, what... Did that mean... Fuck, when the hell had his moirail gone off the deep end. Everyone knew you didn't hurt your moirail. You protected them. What did it mean for Karkat to have hurt him? Didn't the little jokeblooded freak realize that Gamzee could break free if he wanted to? Simple as really trying.

"I want to know, Gamzee. I want to understand."

"Understand what?"

"What I did to deserve this. Did I let you down as a moirail? As a friend? Because I've sitting here for hours, trying to figure it out. Where did I go wrong with you, Gamzee? What did I do to deserve this?"

"Deserve what?"

"Don't act like you don't know. You're not as dumb as you always fucking act."

Cursing, and still no force behind it. There is no fire, no passion, none of the burning that is, was, his moirail. But now that Gamzee's looking, he can see it. See the sickle in Karkat's hand, dripping teal, jade, and bright, sinfully brilliant crimson. Every few seconds a drop falls, and Gamzee's eyes follow on, down and down to the dead gray tile of the floor. A small pool is there, crimson and jade and teal in places, but mixing into a sickly, deep dark brown that is rich with red in some places, and drunk on green in others. The colors are on Karkat's shirt, his pants, his hands too. A splash of crimson across his cheek. The gray of his sign tinted teal. Spots of the pants dark with a shadowy version of jade. Most of it is dried, drying, and some of it is fresh. The crimson in particular. It smells wrong for blood. Like metal more than anything, nothing like the miracles of troll blood. What could it even mean?

"Shit Karkat, what the motherfuck happened? Are you..."

"They're dead, Gamzee. All of them. It's just you and me now. Was that what you wanted? Couldn't finish them yourself so you put me up to it? You knew I would. Poor stupid fucking Karkat. Just act like he's your moirail, and he'll go to the ends of the fucking meteor to protect you. Was that what you planned?"

His eyes, those are the scariest things for Gamzee to look at. His hair, specked with the bloods, hang in front of them, but the eyes are still visible. Cold, dead eyes like Gamzee'd seen looking up at him from Nepeta, from Equius, from Tavros. But without regret. Without fear. Just cold, dead, empty. And yet sparkling with a kind of light that Gamzee wasn't sure anyone but him could recognize. How could he not see it, though? He knew that light in the eyes of a troll. Saw them every time he looked at himself in the reflection of a surface. There was madness in those eyes. Somewhere behind them something had gone wrong. His own rot, settled deep into Karkat's pan. Destroying from the inside out the only one of these miserable fucks that Gamzee had given a damn about.

"You used me, just like you used Terezi. Poor helpless psychopathic troll need someone to protect him from the big, angry rainbow drinker. So I did. I protected you, Gamzee. I threw away everything I had fought for in this damn game to protect you. Killed the people I fought to protect, ironically, from your madness. From our doom. Maybe I should have just ignored Sollux, back then, but why? Why not let us all self-destruct in a marvelous show just to amuse you? Destroy our people in the most showy way you could imagine, right?"

"Karkat."

"Shut up. You don't get to talk. Not yet. I've got questions, and you don't get to speak until I've got them all out, got it?"

He doesn't respond, because what do you even say to that? What did a motherfucker say in a situation like this?

"I'm sorry..."

"No," Karkat growled, some semblance of fire back in his voice for the briefest of moments. Then it's cold again, dead. "I don't need forgiveness. Not from you, not from them. It's useless shit. Besides, I did it for you. You should be motherfucking thankful. I did it all to protect my moirail. No court in Alternia would hold me responsible for what I did. Not that there is anyone left to charge me. Thought she could after I stopped Kanaya, but turns out I didn't fucking care. One death is the same as another. But you already knew that."

Karkat gave a half-hearted, choked off laugh at that.

"Already knew everything. Knew that I could never stop you if you put your mind to it. I was just a puppet to you, wasn't I, Gamzee? I never stood a chance as your moirail. But that doesn't matter now. But the question is, Gamzee, what do you want me to do now? Huh? No one is left to threaten you."

"I didn't..."

"Yes you did, Gamzee. You did this. Did it even occur to you that I had to protect you? Of course it did, because that is what you wanted. Because if I didn't you'd die if Kanaya and Terezi really wanted to do it. And I'd have to kill them to avenge you. And the humans, the stupid fucking humans, would think they could do something about it. Apparently they didn't get the memo on dying as heroes. Or maybe this is, in the fucked up views of the game, just. Killing to protect my moirail. Fuck..."

"Karkat..."

"I had to do it, Gamzee. I had to. If you fucking die who the fuck is left? You ever think about that while you're out fucking around?! What happens to me when you're gone?"

Gone? Who said anything about gone? But no, there wasn't a chance to respond, because Karkat was talking, was striding closer.

"But that's okay, 'bro...' I did the fucking thinking for both of us."

There isn't really much time to struggle before Karkat's there. All up and there and in his face. The broken, mad troll sitting in his lap. Legs straddling him, one arm wrapped around the back of the chair for balance, the other holding the sickle against Gamzee's throat, tenderly cupped in the curve of the sickle. Odd, how he'd never realized just how perfectly a troll's throat fit into one of those things. It was the point, right? The tool of the Threshecutioners, who culled the lowest shit of the low for the Empress. The weapon of her strongest, most fervent supporters. It had never been something that suited Karkat. To be so fucking loyal to the idea of achieving a place among those who would be the quickest to kill him in the Empress's name. And now, here Gamzee was, a sickle between him and his moirail, and if he did so much as breathe wrong he would open his throat on the weapon. Karkat almost didn't seem to notice it, his eyes still devoid of anything but the twinkle of madness, his voice flat, as if he didn't fucking realize he was sitting in Gamzee's lap and threatening him with death.

"Everything, every single fucking thing in my miserable life has gone down hill since I met you. Nothing has been safe, sacred in the face of your fucking plans. Everything and everyone you have ever met, they've fallen. They've died, and it's your fault. Are you proud of yourself, Gamzee? You are the Mirthful motherfucking Messiah and you've destroyed everything. What did we do to deserve it? What did Kanaya do other than expect to protect the last of our race? What about Terezi? The stupid fucking humans? Nothing. They've never done enough to you to deserve this."

He wants to speak. Wants to reach a hand up and stroke Karkat's face and promise him that this wasn't what you wanted. This wasn't what you asked for. That this was never the thing you set out to accomplish. But to speak would be to cut himself, would be lying. Would be denying the pleasure of strangling Equius, the rush of joy that had come from corrupting the human's session, and thus destroying their own. How did a troll plead innocence when in every way that mattered they were guilty?

"I can't keep doing this, Gamzee," Karkat admitted, leaning in and whispering in his ear. "I can't be your tool, because there is nothing left for me to destroy. Nothing we haven't already ruined."

Then the heat at his ear is gone, and Karkat's face is further away, holding an expression of pitying regret that didn't reach those beautifully expressive eyes.

"I wish I could make you understand, Gamzee. Make you feel the fear, the rage, the helplessness they all felt in the end. Terezi cried, Gamzee. She asked me to stop. Dave tried to help her, but it turns out human flesh is easier to cut through than troll. Did you know that, Gamzee? Was that something you planned for? That for all of his speed and immortality, it takes NOTHING at all to cut through them? Rose was the hardest, of course. She knew just enough to see me coming. She was there when Kanaya died, disappeared. I had to hunt for her, for hours. But you were safe, that was important. Turns out I hit you just a bit too hard, but no damage done, right?"

The blade moves back, free of his neck and giving Gamzee breathing room, and then the warmth of Karkat was gone from his lap. Gamzee watched as Karkat's free hand flicked just the slightest bit, reaching for something in his sylladex. Except it wasn't his sylladex that flickered forward. Rather a set of shitty throwing stars appeared in his hand. What were those even for?

Gamzee had just enough time to realize that now that he thought about it, there was an odd emptiness in the air around him, which could only mean that he'd been stripped of both sylladex and specibus, before the stars are gone from Karkat's hands. Weaponized as likely as not by Gamzee's own Jokerkind. They streak through the air, almost too fast to see, and then Gamzee can't see at all after they strike the only light in the room. It's dark. Everything is dark, in a kind of absolute way that his eyes couldn't begin to adjust to.

"I wasn't sure what I was going to do when you woke up," Karkat says, his voice coming from a completely different direction than where Gamzee had last seen him standing.

"I wanted to make you see, understand what you've done. That I won't be your fucking puppet. But I asked myself was it worth it? Could I handle being left here, alone, on this meteor. Half a sweep left until we get into the restarted session. Could I make it that long? Could I handle being alone?"

The voice was behind him now, and Gamzee started to struggle in earnest. All of his attention going into trying to get his hands, his legs, any part of him free.

"But I realized I don't have to be, Gamzee. There's a vast existence out there. Maybe if I wander it long enough I'll find something out there. Terezi and Kanaya to apologize. The part of me that you stole when I started all of this. Something. Anything."

The sickle is back, wrapped around his throat from behind.

"Kar..."

"I just want to be free."

Pain, sudden and demanding in his throat.

Then it's gone. All that's left is the dark. The dark and an aching that feels like someone dropped the meteor on his head.

"Hey."

The voice, soft and low, is Karkat's. And as Gamzee opens his eyes, sees his best friend and moirail standing over him, sees the sickle in his hand dripping teal and jade and crimson, he realizes.

It's all a dream of a memory. All it's ever been is a dream of a memory. The last memory.

He doesn't say anything. Doesn't cut in and change the conversation, force the ghost of his best friend to wake up and realize that they're caught. An endless cycle of their last moments.

Because if he breaks it they have to talk. Have to deal with this. And he isn't sure either of them can handle it. Better to be trapped in an eternity of this than face what they've done to each other. What they've done to everyone around them.


End file.
